Japan, Australian Indexes Reach Fresh One-Year Highs

By Brendan Conway

Bulls were on the rise on the other side of the Pacific overnight.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average rose 0.9%, hitting the highest since March 10, 2011 — that was the day before the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. The iShares MSCI Japan Index Fund (EWJ) is down by a small fraction in heavy premarket trading Thursday morning and the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund (DXJ) is rising by a similarly small amount.

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Chris Dieterich has covered the U.S. stock market for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. He is a graduate of Regis University and the Missouri School of Journalism.